Musa - Salt Museum
Located inside the “Torre” salt warehouse, MUSA preserves a portion of Cervia’s history.
The museum was founded by the Salt Workers’ Cultural Association “Civiltà Salinara” in the aim of keeping the memory of work in saltpans alive. It is a collection of documents, tools and photos showing salt production and its milieu. This is a collection made by man and focusing on man and his culture.
It was officially opened in 2004 with its new and improved exhibition and permanently located inside the “Torre" salt warehouse, Via Nazario Sauro. The museum’s mission is that of safeguarding and preserving tools, pictures and documents testifying life and civilisation as linked to salt and its production. Moreover, it also aims at sensitising people with this subject-matter and at offering useful services to the whole town, its guests and visitors. As a place of meeting, cultural growth and research, its collection enhances and fosters studies and knowledge of the city cultural heritage in the aim of preserving its memory and further arousing interest in the city past and history. The exhibition consists of different sections exploring the world of water, living as a way to develop relationships, and the world of salt and men at work. Visitors’ senses are stimulated so that they can live history, salt production, man’s work and their social life as a kind of adventure.
Some of the pieces inside the museum are very interesting and unusual such as the “burchiella”, the typical iron boat used for salt transportation. Each September this boat is made to come out of the museum and to sail, with its white cargo extracted in “Camillone” saltpan, along the ancient river course connecting the saltpan to the salt warehouses. This circumstance takes place when Cervia celebrates salt and its own history with a series of events named “Sapore di Sale” – “Salty Taste”.
The museum further displays ancient wooden tools once used in saltpans, pictures of salt workers at work, objects and whatever is connected to salt production and to the ancient saltpans.
Besides the very exhibition inside the warehouse, an integral part of the museum is “Camillone” saltpan, the last salt-extraction site where the whole production process is still handcrafted. This is also the only remaining small saltpan of the 144 existing ones before salt production was turned into industrial in 1959.
Where: Via Nazario Sauro 24, Cervia
Opening: yearly
Timetable
- From 1st June to 15th September
every day 8.30 p.m. - midnight - From 1st to 4th September
also from 11.00 a.m. to 12.30 p.m. and from 3.00 p.m. to 7.30 p.m. - From 17th September to 31st May
Saturday, Sunday and non-working days 2.30 p.m. - 7.00 p.m.
Christmas Period
- From 21st December 2024 to 6th January 2025
every day 2.30 p.m. - 7.00 p.m.
- Guided visits can be booked by writing to the following e-mail address: musa@comunecervia.it
Price
Tickets
- full ticket € 2,00
- reduced ticket € 1,00: boys and girls from 13 to 18 years
- free on every first Sunday of the month
Free admission
- children up to 12 years
- disabled people with a helper
- tourist guides
- interpreter attending a group
Official Tourist Information Site of Cervia